Congress packs up after consecutive 2-day work weeks

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Ca., speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 7, 2012. With about three weeks left before the ...

Yuri Gripas/Reuters

Congress has its work week mixed up.

For the second week in a row, lawmakers have bucked the traditional five-day work week for a long, long weekend, all as Americans await some sort of deal on the fiscal cliff.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chastised Congress on Thursday for cutting out of town before reaching a deal on the nation’s approaching fiscal woes.

“Here we are, 18 days from a possible fiscal cliff (hopefully not), 12 days until Christmas, and here we are once again having a two-day work week in the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi said in a press conference. “Two two-day work weeks in a row. This is just not right.”

Last week, lawmakers vacated Capitol Hill Wednesday morning—this week, Pelosi says they were on the clock only from Tuesday to Thursday morning.

“We really have to come to some agreement in the next couple of days with the very beginning of week for us to have engineered our way to a solution,” she said.

Republicans however, like House Speaker John Boehner, are blaming President Obama for not putting in enough hours for a plan to reach a compromise.

“The White House is so unserious about cutting spending, it appears willing to slow walk any agreement and walk our economy right up to the fiscal cliff,” Boehner said in his own press conference Thursday. Democrats counter that the GOP is to blame for failing to release a viable counter-offer.

“Republicans put out a letter that had more signatures than it had ideas, and it had like one number,” Pelosi said.